The Price
by ShadowRadger501
Summary: One horrible murder. Two detectives, unknowing of the waiting trap. They will watch life and death in a careful dance, feel the pain of betrayal, and watch as a young woman is slowly and brutally killed... Weak stomach?  Don't read.
1. Shadows

_Prologue_

_September 29__th_

"_Cold night tonight," commented the woman in the driver's seat. "Should preserve the body, at least." _

_The man beside her nodded, leaned back in the passenger seat, flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes . "Not that we aren't used to the smell."_

_The woman laughed. She stole a glance out the window, having deemed it safe to do so on this long, straight stretch of empty road, and watched the full moon. As always, she lost her breath a moment. So pure, so white. Though she shifted at the sight a bit tonight. Tonight she saw instead a great, glistening white eye, watching her deeds and condemning her._

_She was brought back to reality by a gentle brush of skin against her hair. He ran his fingers down the length of the dark silk. She smiled and leaned into his touch. He had no way of knowing she was a murderer. Or at least, that she had killed this particular one._

_No way of knowing the betrayal that lay in wait._

_No way of foreseeing his own death._

_No way._


	2. Light

"_Adrian Ivashkov, I'm going to beat your ass into the ground!"_

I rounded the corner and came face-to-face with my obnoxious, conceited, moronic twenty-six-year-old brother. He looked the same as ever: locks of messy brown hair falling into his face, hypnotizing emerald eyes dancing with amusement, a cocky grin splashed across his face. Idiot. I'd kill him while he slept. I met his teasing green eyes with a glare. "What the hell did you do to my room?"

He shrugged. "Don't know what you're talking about."

I dragged him down the hall to my room—by a lock of his perfectly tousled hair, no less—and pointed in the door. "You see the problem?"

He took a quick glance around. "Nope. Seems the same as ever to me."

"Ass." I picked up one of the magazines and flicked it at him. "That, Adrian."

He caught it deftly, laughed, and said sarcastically, "Oh. That."

"Yes. That." I crossed my arms. "Care to explain?"

He shrugged unconcernedly. "Just payback for your little stunt last week."

I had to smile at the memory. I'd gotten bored and told Adrian's girlfriend he had run off to Vegas to work as a male stripper, and that he'd left a gift behind to remember him by. Then I'd handed her a condom.

That stupid blonde believed me.

Really, she should have known better. You can't date Adrian for eight months and not learn to avoid his little sister. I'm dangerous. I may be 22, but that doesn't mean I always have to act like it.

Clearly Adrian and I share a gene or two.

"So as repayment for getting rid of that stupid blonde for you, you assault my room with _Playboy_? Where did you get all these, anyway?"

"Hey, I liked her!" he protested.

"Which basically means you like her chest. At least have the balls to say it like it is. And you dodged the second question. Been hoarding them, have you?"

He rolled his eyes. "Ex-girlfriend. When she heard I was pranking you, she asked her boyfriend if he had any old ones." He laughed. "She broke up with him when he handed them all over and she saw the issue dates."

I'd have ditched him too. There were easily a hundred magazines draped around my room, not to mention all the lacy black items and toys scattered on the floor. If Dimitri ever did that…nah, he was twenty-nine. Too mature for that.

Speak of the devil.

My boyfriend's eyes widened as he realized the state of my room. "Rose, am I not enough for you?" he asked, but I could tell the hurt in his eyes and voice were fake. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

Two can play at that. I adopted an overdramatic, soap-opera style voice. "Oh, Dimitri," I sobbed, falling into his arms with a flourish, "I'm so sorry. It was just one night, just a mistake. Oh, how it will haunt me. It was…a woman, Dimitri. It was…Adrian."

Dimitri laughed and kissed my cheek as Adrian gave an indignant "Hey!" behind us. "I am _not_ a woman!" he said defensively. "Just ask about thirty-four girls."

I shook my head. "Adrian, when you get genital warts I am going to laugh my _ass_ off."

He muttered something and tried to walk away, but I grabbed him by the collar and jerked him back. "Oh, no you don't. Clean this up." We'd been living together without our parents for three years now, and we got along no better than we had for the nineteen before that.

"Hell no, do it yourself or hire a maid," he told me.

"Fine, then, I'll call Jessica." One of his more…unhinged exes.

"I'll do it!" he yelled, and jerked out of my hold to start shoving magazines into a garbage bag.

Dimitri led me out to the kitchen, where my nosy brother couldn't hear. "We have another case," he said softly. "It's not going to be easy."

I bit my lip, an emotion I couldn't identify racing through me. Gently, Dimitri eased my lip out from under my teeth with his finger. He didn't like it when I did that. As usual when I wanted to hide my feelings, I brushed it off with a flippant comment. "All our cases are hard. That's the point of being a PI."

He shook his head. "This one's…unusual. And brutal." His lip curled. "Obviously a psychopath. No normal person would do this." He shivered. "In all my years in this job, I've never seen anything like this. It's horrible."

"Who is it?"

"Isabella Swan. The killer left no trace whatsoever, just…" He shook his head again. "Like I said, obviously a psychopath."

I flinched. "Great. I love hunting down psychopaths," I said with all the sarcasm I could manage. "Where do we start?"

"Near Court. She was on vacation with her husband."

I nodded. "Okay. Should we go?"

He walked out to the car. I followed, praying. For what, I couldn't say.

_Done. Second chapter will be up soon. Remember, this is a murder mystery. Keep your eyes open for clues. _

_-Skylar_


	3. Taken

_September 11__th_

_It was deep in the night. Unnatural blackness, aided by the new moon, shrouded her movements toward the opulent house. They were only staying here, just a few miles away from Court, for a week and a half, but it didn't matter to them. The house was grand and tall, clad in glass and lots of balconies, hidden by a heavy forest. A large pool rested out front. The surface was as smooth and clear as glass. They couldn't handle staying in a smaller house for a week?_

_Carefully, staying in the shadows, she maneuvered her way to the lower balcony. She considered for a moment, then began her climb. She'd attached powerful magnets to her gloves and shoes and used them now to make her way up the iron support. All the while, she worried about her vulnerable position—or rather, the little voice guiding her did. _

_Finally, she made it to the second-floor balcony. It had seemed like an eternity, and there were two more floors to go before she made it to Isabella's bedroom. She took a moment to breathe, curled on the corner of the balcony, before continuing on up the support beams._

_Third floor. She took another moment to catch her breath and slow her pounding heart. How many times had she killed…yet how many had she murdered?_

Silence, _the little voice whispered, the one that had been speaking to her the past week. _There is nothing wrong with removing the weak from the world, _it said. _Those hearts with no passion to change, with no drive to create, must be taken out of its own sphere of influence. They cannot be allowed to poison the hearts of those around them with numbness, with passionlessly moving through each day heedless of the ripples in the water they could create…yes, my dear, they must be dispatched before they can do harm. You are too young yet to understand. Trust me, dear. Trust me as you have been.

_And yes, she did. She trusted that voice, that voice who knew all her thoughts and all her wishes, desires, dreams, loves, hates, regrets, mistakes…that knew her as well as her love ever could. That voice had guided her in the ways of darkness ever since she had given into it. Darkness, she now knew, was not evil. It was simply the natural counterpart to light. Without shadows, no one would notice the sun. She acted in the best interest of the world._

_And it didn't matter to her how many lives those interests cost._

_Isabella Swan was a necessary price._

_Refilled with boldness, she used the pocket laser to carve a small hole in the glass of the balcony door. Silent. Useful. The voice had guided her to it. She carefully reached in, mindful of the sharp edges, and unlocked the door from the inside. Intuition told her there was no one in the room, no one alert at least, and she was right. The drugs she'd given Isabella, specially made for her kind, had put her into a state of what was almost like half-consciousness. Her husband was hunting. She was alone._

Take her now. This is what you have been waiting for.

_All reason washed away at the voice's urging. She slid the door open and stepped forward. Isabella looked up at her, helpless, eyes glazed over blankly._

Take her.

_She did._

She is the price.

A/N: If you're confused on the timeline, go back and read the dates at the top of each chapter.

-Skylar


End file.
